Surviving Tarsus IV
by Mockingbird Quester
Summary: Inspired while writing "Hidden Memories". Thirteen year old James T. Kirk is sent to Tarsus IV for "rehabiliation" as part of a juvenile offender program. Now he just has to survive the experience. Warning: graphic violence and death.
1. Chapter 1

"Due to his recent criminal actions, most seriously driving without a license while underage, destroying property, reckless driving and evading arrest, the juvenile named James Tiberius Kirk, will be remanded into state custody until he has shown evidence of rehabilitation. His sentence is to serve one year in the Colony Outreach Program, after which his behavior and mental state will be evaluated to determine if his rehabilitation was successful."

"Legal guardianship is remanded to the state of Iowa at this time. An appeal to retain guardianship made be made by his biological mother when she returns planet side. No appeal will be allowed until that time."

Winona Kirk was staring numbly at the transmission, as though by doing so she could somehow change the contents.

Winona had requested a leave of absence as soon as Frank called her with the news. George had run away and had still not been found, while Jim had for some reason stolen his father's antique car and driven it off a cliff, in the process evading arrest by an officer and nearly getting killed. Apparently when authorities had arrived at their home, they had found Frank inebriated and her 15 year old son George Jr. missing, and had immediately taken James into temporary custody. She would be back on Earth within four days, but Jim had already been sentenced to enter a juvenile offender program and even if custody was returned to her when she reached Earth, she wouldn't be able to see her son for at least a year. The Colony Outreach program could take him to any colony in the galaxy for rehabilitation, and she would not be made aware which one in the monthly updates from his caseworker.

Her youngest son had never been in trouble in his short life. George Jr. was the defiant one, the son who challenged she and Frank at every turn, and merited constant calls from his teachers. Jimmy was the good son who made top grades and outscored any testing standard he was given. He was quieter than his brother, more serious and studious, but quick to charm those who gave him a hard time. She couldn't imagine what had happened at the farm that day to have caused him to have done something so reckless, and now she wouldn't be able to ask him about it until a year later.

Winona Kirk put her face down on the desk and let herself cry, wondering what her youngest son was feeling, wherever he was.

Across the galaxy, James T. Kirk was feeling more frightened than he ever had in his admittedly sheltered experience.

He was on a transport with a group of 50 other young men, some younger than him but most older. He was wearing work clothing that had been issued to him, and carrying a backpack that contained changes of clothing, a flashlight, and a small padd unit that had been disabled to allow the reading and sending of educational documents only. He had been informed he would be allowed an monthly transmission with his social worker, and no contact with family members. Technically, his mother did not even have legal custody at this time.

Shivering despite the heat, surrounded by strangers, Jim found himself wishing he had just let Frank sell the damned car. In even greater retrospect, he realized that when George left he should have made a collect transmission to his mother informing her that Frank was planning to sell his father's antique vehicle and that Sam had run away due to this. Even across the universe, he knew she would have found a way to diffuse the situation.

Now, the car was destroyed anyway, his mother didn't know why and who knew where his brother was. And even though Jim had always wished he could go to space he hadn't particularly wanted to visit some backwater colony. Now he had no choice in the matter.

Cradling his head in his arms, Jim Kirk let himself sob as quietly as possible. The last thing he needed was the other boys thinking he was weak. ad already realized he was one of the youngest J.O.'s in this program, and didn't want to think what that would mean for his life during the next year. Being younger and smaller could mean being somewhat looked after or, more likely, being more bullied.

"Hey," he whispered quietly "Why are they waking us up?"

The other boy looked to be of hispanic descent. His dark eyebrows were half-shaved off and Jim could see pigmentation on his neck that suggested recent laser repairs of a tattoo, since they weren't allowed under program dress code. He cracked one eyelid and regarded the small, blonde boy beside him.

"They're waking up 'cause they can, and 'cause we're almost at the colony."

"Which colony?" Jim whispered.

"Don't know. Heard one of the wardens say 'Tarsus' though. All the Tarsus colonies are small, and we'll be stuck here." The older boy shrugged, with the air of someone who didn't really care where they were. Maybe he didn't.

"Oh. My name is Jim."

"Call me Chuy. How old are you?"

"Thirteen."

"You look about ten. This is gonna be tough on you, wei. Good luck."

Jim curled up in on himself miserably as the older boy got up and disappeared into the mass of boys being herded out of the shuttle, then got up himself.

He gripped his backpack tight on his shoulders and went where he was told. Looking at the older, tougher guys that surrounded him, he decided he would do whatever it took to get through this and make it back home. Soon he would be able to contact his court advocate and see if there had been any changes in his case. Until then, he just had to survive. He could do that. Whatever happened, he was going to be allowed home eventually, right?


	2. Chapter 2

Maybe the other boys being held in detention didn't know any better, but Jim quickly realized there was something wrong at the farm they were working at. If he had been from a city in California or New York he might have never noticed, but he had grown up on a farm in Iowa and he knew how much work even the crops his stepfather took on their small family farm.

In their program orientation, it had been emphasized they would be working from sun up until sun down, helping to harvest the crops for the colony during this busy season.

Jim almost wished they were, so the bigger guys would have less time to stalk and torture him. In the two weeks since they had arrived, his visits to the infirmary had been an almost daily occurrence, not that the "instructors" there seemed to care. Oh, they would pull whoever was pounding on him off the smaller boy and restrain them if they saw some of the larger guys bullying him, but most of his tormentors were smart enough to do so in seclusion, with only the mocking eyes of the other teenagers to pass judgment.

In the end it was Chuy, the biggest and seemingly strongest of all the youths, who came to his assistance. One day after a particularly brutal beating where one of his assailants made numerous sexual threats against Jim, the older boy had enough. Instead of watching and staying out of the situation, he pushed his way into the fight and proceeded to pound the aggressor into the ground.

"Leave the little ese alone! He ain't a bad kid and anyone who messes with him is gonna deal with me!" Chuy said, making quite clear he could back up the threat.

From then on, Jim stayed out of shadows and within calling distance of the Hispanic boy whenever possible. Chuy taught him to play cards, and how to take a hit and fight back in response. In return, Jim helped the Chuy with the coursework on his PADD, especially once he realized the older boy could hardly read to complete the work. Jim considered it a fair trade. It was almost like having an older brother again, and Jim was grateful enough to do anything the older boy asked of him.

Still, there seemed to be very little being harvested. They were working less than a full day right from the beginning. A farm that should have taken weeks to harvest was taking much less, and Jim couldn't understand why. Why were the adults in charge only having them work 3 or 4 hours a day on the farm, and most of that with the livestock?

Their rations were shrinking as well. At first Jim had thought the small meal portions were some kind of object lesson to force the Juvenile offenders into scrounging their own food and not being too comfortable. But as time passed and even the instructors looked thin and worried, Jim realized they weren't eating much more than their charges. Something was wrong and it worried him.

In the end it was sheer luck Jim survived the assault on the Outreach compound. He had gone down to a nearby stream to wash out a dirty shirt, and when he started back towards the bunkers he saw groups of men that were obviously some sort of military patrol had everyone outside and against the side of the largest barn. While Jim crouched in the field, wondering what to do, he heard the sounds of phasers shooting, and screaming and saw them all, adults and teenagers, fall to the ground never to get up.

Jim crept as silently as possible back to the stream, where he hid near the overgrown riverbank. Later, when it was late at night, he dared to go back to the bunker and grab a knapsack of basic supplies. He moved silently through the building taking whatever he could find that would be useful. Apparently the patrol that had murdered everyone had already done so though and there was very little for him to take. All the food in the building was gone as well, and they had taken the livestock, goats, cows and chickens. There was nothing left alive in the center except one small boy and he knew he would not survive if he stayed.

The phasered bodies had vanished, broken down into such small compounds there was no sign they had ever existed. Jim felt alone in the universe and tried to decide what to do next.

The next morning, Jim went to the outside perimeter of the farm. The electricity in the compound and on the surrounding fence had been shut off, but scaling the high fence was still no easy task and left Jim with skinned legs and bleeding hands.

Jim Kirk had made it outside the compound, but with very little. In his knapsack was a glow light, a bottle of electrolyte tabs, a water bottle with filter and a small dinner knife he had filed into a sharp point.

Remembering some of the older boys talking about a nearby community to the North, Jim headed in that direction. After only half a day, he reached a portion of the city that appeared abandoned.


	3. Chapter 3

He began searching nearby abandoned dwellings for anything useable, but there was not much. The famine had gone on too long, and people had eaten anything edible. He did find a large men's plaid shirt to wrap himself in at night, and a small blanket.

It was during his endless scouting, that Jim discovered he wasn't the only person living in the shadows of the poorest part of the colony. Every now and then he saw a fleeting glimpse of another person moving in the darkest shadows of the alleys. So far, no one had harmed him or stolen from him, but the thought that someone could left him constantly on edge. He carefully began adopting the "don't mess with me" swagger that Chuy had taught him at all times, trying to appear confident and as though he would not be an easy victim. If he was a few years older and a foot taller, this would have been more effective. As it was, he began to wear down and weaken, due to both hunger and a lack of sleep. His own nightmares of what he had seen, combined with sleeping lightly out of fear of being attacked, weren't allowing his body the rest it needed.

If had been a man alone, he never would have dared to get close. But the young man, maybe only a decade older than Jim, had a young women held protectively close. There was a soft sound, quickly shushed, and Jim realized she was covering a child with her coat. A family then. People trying to stay together and help each other.

In the end, he couldn't turn down a chance for survival, no matter how slim it was. He followed the small family for nearly a day before they acknowledged his presence, and even then it was rarely more than a brief nod in his direction. They had a little boy who couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 years old with them and it was obviously all they could do to care for him. A lost adolescent wasn't something they could afford to take on in their desperate circumstances, but they would tolerate him as long as he wasn't taking food from their child's mouth. He began to sleep by their small fire at night.

Jim felt better sleeping at night beside the Riley's fire. Hearing the young man and woman breath at night and listening to the soft child sounds Kevin made in his sleep made Jim feel somewhat safe and like he wasn't alone in the world. It wasn't very logical, considering he could have hidden better without them. The larger a group was they more likely that Kodo's guards would stumble across them. Still, he stayed nearby and always came back to them at night.

Jim spent his days scrounging for any kind of nourishment, but there wasn't much. One day he managed to catch a large rat, and Thomas Riley showed him how to clean and skewer it on a stick to cook it. In return for the knowledge and use of their fire, Jim gave the man part of it. Another day he found an old dented can that contained a plain broth. He drank half, then gave the other half to the Riley's in return for their protection. He watched Kathleen Riley give it all to her oldest son, who was the skinniest and quietest boy Jim had ever seen.

That night, he watched Kathleen silently rocking the boy back and forth as he slept against her breast, and he wondered how any of them would ever survive. Even if Kodo's guards didn't catch them, how long would it be before Starfleet learned of the situation? How would they stay alive until then?

In the end it was sheer luck when Jim stumbled on a cache of food someone had been hoarding behind a false wall in a closet. There were bags of dried fruits, a few small bags of native grains and many small pouches of juice and milk as well as a few Starfleet issue ready meals in pouches. Jim filled his knapsack with all that it could carry before snatching an extra meal pouch and juice bag and eating them there in the closet. The bland meat and rice meal tasted wonderful even cold, and the juice was sweeter than any soda. After sitting and waiting a moment to ensure they were going to stay in his weakened stomach, Jim considered his options.

He could replace the false wall and use this stash to survive alone, or he could try to help the starving family who sometimes let him share their fire and hideyholes. He thought of little Kevin, and the choice was simple. If he remained alive and watched them die, he couldn't forgive himself. That night, Jim approached Thomas and told him what he had found. In the cover of darkness, they snuck back to the hovel and packed every scrap of food in bags and Mr. Riley even tied part of it to his back. On their way back to his wife and child, Thomas stopped and carefully dug a hole in the ground where they hid half of the food, in case they needed it later.

It was one of the rare times Thomas really spoke to Jim. "Remember where this site is. If something happens to me, bring Kathleen or Kevin here. Take care of them for me."

He then placed a hand on Jim's shoulder, patted it and whispered "Thank you…"

Jim would remember that only two nights later. They were all feeling somewhat happy and well fed. Kevin's skin and body already looked healthier, due to a mixture of the milk and grains his mother had been cooking into a sort of porridge and feeding all of them. He had taken Kevin with him to help trap rats under a nearby building. The boy was small and fast and good at catching them, matter of factly smashing their heads with a rock and rarely bitten. Jim sometimes marveled at the stoic little boy, wondering if he would have managed so well at the same age.

Then there was a loud noise and a sharp scream. Kevin was running back to their shelter faster than Jim though possible, and he had only barely caught up to the smaller boy and pulled him into the shadows, throwing a hand over his mouth in case he was tempted to cry out.

Thomas already lay dead next to their sleeping pallets. Kathleen had blood spreading across her stomach and dripping from her nose and mouth, as a patrol guard nudged her with his boot and barked questions at her. Her head fell back without answering, and Jim felt Kevin keening against the hand over him mouth.

He watched the patrols rifle through the bags and take all the food and anything else of value. They stayed there for a time, and Jim silently led the small boy away, into the smallest, darkest closet of a hovel he could find where they both cried as quietly as possible throughout the rest of the day. They were a teenager and a child alone now, without any semblance of protection.

That night, under the cover of darkness, Jim chanced to go back to what had previously been there sanctuary, leaving Kevin behind to sleep his grief out. He tried not to look at the bodies of the man and woman who had been kind to him, and nearly threw up when he accidentally touched a puddle of what he knew must be blood. The food was gone, and he was suddenly grateful for the cache he had helped Thomas hide weeks before. He did manage to salvage a few blankets, a shirt, and a small cooking pot. It was something, at least.

In the weeks he had spent with the Rileys, at least Jim had acquired more skills to help them survive. He could start a fire out a scavenged wood, although they only did so when cooking small animals or boiling water. He could catch and skin rats and the native small mammals that lived underground in the fields. Even so, their small store of grains and dried foods continued to deplete and they were only weeks away from having nothing but what they could catch themselves. He and Kevin continued to looked for other foods left behind by the former inhabitants, but with little success.

The night before they ventured out of the abandoned part of the colony, Jim dreamt of home. In his dreams he was back in his own room, with soft, clean sheets and starship models handing above his bed. He could imagine going to the kitchen to find his mother home on shore leave and making fluffy pancakes topped with butter and syrup with big glasses of milk. His brother George would be there, and since it was a dream even his stepfather Frank had miraculously vanished, although now, after dealing with real pain and cruelty, his stepfather's verbal put downs and physical threats seemed childish.

When Jim woke, he put his hand on Kevin's shoulder and said simply "We will get off this rock. We will get back to Earth. We are going to survive this." The younger boy studied his face a moment and then nodded just once. They packed what was left of their supplies and set out towards the main part of the colony near the palace, where all the prisoners were being kept. They didn't realize it yet, but it was the most dangerous day they could have possibly chosen to do so.


End file.
